If you know my husband Adrean, you probably already know how much he is going to hate that I'm doing this. Adrean is a very private person when it comes to asking for help. We've been together for more than ten years, and he's always been the person who would rather figure something out himself than put his problems on somebody else. He's usually the one taking care of everyone around him, whether that's his family, his friends, or the people he works with.

So I'm asking for him.

On September 28, Adrean starts chemotherapy. Having an actual date on the calendar has made everything suddenly feel much more real, and we're realizing how quickly our lives are about to change.

Adrean was first diagnosed with testicular cancer in the fall of 2024. His tumor was a mixed germ cell tumor containing cancer and teratoma, and he underwent surgery to remove the affected testicle. Afterward, his testing looked good. He continued with surveillance and his scans, and we really thought we had gotten through it.

Then this summer, something changed. Around July, Adrean started telling me how exhausted he felt. He was getting sick more frequently and started having episodes of sharp abdominal pain that would come and go. Like Adrean does, he kept working and kept going until August 26, when the pain became severe and he developed a fever. He finally went to the emergency room that evening.

A scan showed a large mass deep inside his abdomen, and he was admitted to the hospital that night. After more CT scans and eventually an endoscopic biopsy, we received the news we weren't prepared for: his cancer had come back.

His testicular cancer had spread to the lymph nodes in his abdomen. The mass contains cancer as well as teratoma, and its size and location are putting significant pressure inside his abdomen and causing much of the pain that originally sent him to the hospital. Adrean is currently considered Stage II, and his oncology team has recommended three months of BEP treatment

Treatment officially begins September 28 and will continue for approximately three months. After chemotherapy, he'll need time for his body to recover before we move into the next part of this. He'll have more scans and surgical consultations to determine what remains and how much of the teratoma will need to be surgically removed.

So we're looking at months of chemotherapy, recovery, scans, appointments and most likely surgery afterward. The hardest part right now is that we don't really know what those months are going to look like.

Adrean is currently convinced he's going to keep working through all of it, which will surprise absolutely nobody who knows him. His career means a lot to him. He works in healthcare and genuinely loves taking care of people. He's the person working ridiculous hours, checking on everybody, solving problems that aren't technically his problem and making the entire office laugh in the process. Work is also a huge part of his independence, and the idea that chemotherapy could temporarily take some of that away from him has been incredibly difficult for him.

We hope he'll be able to continue working when he feels well enough, but we also have to be realistic that there may be days or weeks when his body simply won't allow it. We won't really know until treatment starts, and that's one of the reasons I'm doing this now.

Cancer gets expensive incredibly fast. There are the obvious costs like chemotherapy, scans, procedures, medications, insurance deductibles and coinsurance, follow-up appointments and eventually surgery. Then there are all the other expenses you don't really think about until cancer becomes part of your life: transportation back and forth to treatment, missed work, recovery days and all of the completely normal household bills that keep showing up whether you're healthy enough to work or not.

I'm also going to be beside him as much as I possibly can through this. If he's sitting through hours of chemotherapy, I want to be there. If he's sick afterward, I want to be home with him. If he needs me at an appointment, I don't want either of us deciding whether I can go based on whether we can afford for me to miss work that day.

That's what this fundraiser is for. The money raised will help cover Adrean's out-of-pocket medical and treatment expenses, medications, transportation, insurance costs, household expenses and lost income if treatment makes it impossible for him to work. It will also help us prepare for the recovery period and surgery expected after chemotherapy.

We're not expecting a fundraiser to make cancer easy. I just want to give Adrean some room to be sick when he needs to be sick without also panicking about what it's costing us.

If you know Adrean, then you know there's also a whole lot more to him than what's happening medically right now. He's ridiculously social, quick-witted, inappropriate in the best possible way and somehow capable of making friends almost anywhere he goes. He's the person people call when something is wrong, the friend who listens and the one who will find a way to make you laugh when you absolutely don't feel like laughing. He loves his friends and family fiercely, and taking care of people comes very naturally to him. Letting people take care of him is another story.

When his boss, Dina, first suggested that we start a GoFundMe, neither of us was immediately comfortable with the idea. We've always been the people who say we'll figure it out and take care of ourselves. But I'm starting to realize that asking the people who love us for help is part of figuring this out too.

We have a long few months ahead of us, and I don't want pride to make them harder than they already have to be. I'm his husband, I love him more than I know how to explain, and I know that underneath the jokes, the confidence and his insistence that he's going to keep doing everything exactly as he always has, he's scared. I'm scared too.

September 28 is coming quickly. If you're able to donate, thank you. Every contribution gives us a little more room to focus on getting Adrean through treatment instead of worrying about the financial hit that comes with it. If donating isn't possible, sharing this with other people helps us just as much. And if you know Adrean personally, send him a message, make him laugh and remind him that his people are still here.

He's spent a lot of his life showing up for other people. For the next few months, I'm asking the people who love him to help me show up for him.

Thank you for helping me take care of my husband.

— Jason